Barbie 2000s “My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.” - Ruth Handler (creator of the Barbie doll, shown left), on being inspired by her young daughter Barbara’s fascination with teenage life and love for fashion dolls. Ruth and Elliot Handler (shown here) founded Mattel Creations in 1945, and 14 years later, Ruth Handler gave the world the Barbie doll. When asked her relationship to Barbie, Ruth simply replied, "I'm Barbie's mom." The inspiration for Barbie came as Ruth watched her daughter Barbara playing with paper dolls. Barbara and her friends used them to play adult or teenage make-believe, imagining roles as college students, cheerleaders and adults with careers. Ruth immediately recognized that experimenting with the future from a safe distance through pretend play was an important part of growing up. She also noticed a product void and was determined to fill that niche with a three-dimensional fashion doll.

Several years and many designs later, Mattel introduced Barbie, the Teen-Age Fashion Model, to skeptical toy buyers at the annual Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959. Never before had they seen a doll so completely unlike the baby and toddler dolls popular at the time. Today, with a professional resume thicker than a phonebook, a circle of friends that rival any social network and a community of caring that spans the globe, Barbie continues to find new ways to inspire and encourage the next generation of girls. Barbie makes her debut - Mar 09, 1959 - HISTORY.com Barbie makes her debut Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1959, the first Barbie doll goes on display at the American Toy Fair in New York City. Eleven inches tall, with a waterfall of blond hair, Barbie was the first mass-produced toy doll in the United States with adult features. The woman behind Barbie was Ruth Handler, who co-founded Mattel, Inc. with her husband in 1945.

After seeing her young daughter ignore her baby dolls to play make-believe with paper dolls of adult women, Handler realized there was an important niche in the market for a toy that allowed little girls to imagine the future. Barbie’s appearance was modeled on a doll named Lilli, based on a German comic strip character. Originally marketed as a racy gag gift to adult men in tobacco shops, the Lilli doll later became extremely popular with children. Mattel bought the rights to Lilli and made its own version, which Handler named after her daughter, Barbara. With its sponsorship of the “Mickey Mouse Club” TV program in 1955, Mattel became the first toy company to broadcast commercials to children. They used this medium to promote their new toy, and by 1961, the enormous consumer demand for the doll led Mattel to release a boyfriend for Barbie. Handler named him Ken, after her son. Barbie’s best friend, Midge, came out in 1963; her little sister, Skipper, debuted the following year. Over the years, Barbie generated huge sales–and a lot of controversy.

On the positive side, many women saw Barbie as providing an alternative to traditional 1950s gender roles. She has had a series of different jobs, from airline stewardess, doctor, pilot and astronaut to Olympic athlete and even U.S. presidential candidate. Others thought Barbie’s never-ending supply of designer outfits, cars and “Dream Houses” encouraged kids to be materialistic. It was Barbie’s appearance that caused the most controversy, however. Her tiny waist and enormous breasts–it was estimated that if she were a real woman, her measurements would be 36-18-38–led many to claim that Barbie provided little girls with an unrealistic and harmful example and fostered negative body image. Despite the criticism, sales of Barbie-related merchandise continued to soar, topping 1 billion dollars annually by 1993. Since 1959, more than 800 million dolls in the Barbie family have been sold around the world and Barbie is now a bona fide global icon.

More on This Topic Ruth Handler - Inventor of Barbie & Mattel Co-Founder Ruth and Elliot Handler co-founded Mattel Creations in 1945, and 14 years later in 1959, Ruth Handler invented the Barbie doll, or as Ruth Handler refers to herself, "I'm Barbie's mom." Inspiration for the Barbie Doll Ruth Handler watched her daughter Barbara and friends playing with paper dolls. The children used them to play make-believe, imagining roles as college students, cheerleaders and adults with careers. Ruth wanted to invent a doll that would better facilitate the way young girls were playing with their dolls. Ruth Handler and Mattel introduced Barbie , the Teen-Age Fashion Model, to skeptical toy buyers at the annual Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959. The new doll was very unlike the baby and toddler dolls that were popular at the time. continue reading below our video What to Do If Your Identity is Stolen This was a doll with an adult body. During a family trip to Switzerland, Ruth Handler saw the German made Bild Lilli doll in a Swiss shop and brought one.

The Bild Lilli doll was a collector's item snd not intended for sale to children, however, Ruth Handler used it as the basis of her design for Barbie. Barbie Doll’s first boyfriend, Ken Doll , debuted two years after Barbie in 1961. Ruth Handler on Barbie Doll “Barbie has always represented that a woman has choices. Even in her early years, Barbie did not have to settle for only being Ken’s girlfriend or an inveterate shopper. She had the clothes, for example, to launch a career as a nurse, a stewardess, a nightclub singer. I believe the choices Barbie represents helped the doll catch on initially, not just with daughters - who would one day make up the first major wave of women in management and professionals – but also with mothers.” - Ruth Handler Ruth Handler - Other Inventions After fighting breast cancer and undergoing a mastectomy in 1970 Ruth Handler, one of the creators of the Barbie Doll, surveyed the market for a suitable prosthetic breast. Disappointed in the options available, she set about designing a replacement breast that was more similar to a natural one.

In 1975, Handler received a patent for Nearly Me, a prosthesis made of material close in weight and density to natural breasts. Ruth Mosko Handler unveils Barbie Doll | Jewish Women's Archive Home › Collections › This Week in History › Ruth Mosko Handler unveils Barbie Doll Ruth Mosko Handler unveils Barbie Doll March 9, 1959 At the International American Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959, inventor Ruth Mosko Handler unveiled one of the most loved, emulated, and criticized toys of the 20th century. The Barbie Doll, named after Handler's 15-year-old daughter, and modeled after a sex toy called Lilli, which Handler had seen on a trip to Germany, rocketed the Mattel company to nearly overnight success and became an icon of American culture. Although Barbie has been roundly condemned by feminists as promoting an unrealistic body shape to young girls, Handler originally conceived the doll as a way for girls to imagine their futures as adult women.

"I believed it was important to a little girl's self-esteem," she later said, "to play with a doll that has breasts." The development of the doll was also influenced by Handler's daughter's preference for adult paper dolls over the baby dolls that then dominated the toy market. Although it was Mattel's first big success, the Barbie Doll was not the beginning of Handler's career as an inventor. While working at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, Handler first went into business with her husband producing picture frames. Mattel, named for Handler's husband and a business partner, was incorporated in 1945. In its early years, the company produced a toy ukulele and toy guns; it was among the first to market toys directly to children, sponsoring a year's run of the Mickey Mouse Club television show. After the runaway success of Barbie, the company added Ken, named after Handler's son, and later additional dolls named for Handler's grandchildren. After losing a breast to cancer in 1970, and leaving Mattel in 1975, Handler turned her attention to helping other breast cancer survivors. Unhappy with the available breast prostheses, she invented her own, which she sold through a new company called Nearly Me.

Handler received numerous awards for her accomplishments. The Los Angeles Times named her "Woman of the Year" in Business in 1967, the United Jewish Appeal named her its first "Woman of Distinction," and the Toy Industry Hall of Fame inducted her in 1985. Ruth Mosko Handler died in 2002. Although often a subject of satire and social criticism, Barbie lives on, with more than 100 million sold annually. Professional outfits and ethnic Barbies have updated the original, but the grown-up doll continues to entrance both young girls and older collectors. > Sources:Ruth Mosko Handler, Dream Doll: The Ruth Handler Story (Stamford, CT, 1994); ; Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, pp. 591-592; M.G. Lord, Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll (New York, 1994); Los Angeles Times, December 12, 1967, December 15, 1967; New York Times, April 29, 2002.

More like this Barbie Doll History - Invention of the Barbie Doll Invention: Barbieï¿½ doll in 1959 Function: noun / Trademark (Reg, U,S.) Definition: A small-scale anatomically improbable molded plastic figure of a human being used especially as a child's plaything. Collectable doll. Trademark: Reg. No. 0689055 issued December 1, 1959 Inventor: Ruth Handler Criteria: First to invent. First to patent. Entrepreneur. Birth: November. 4, 1916 in Denver, Colorado, Ruth Mosko Death: April 27, 2002 in Los Angeles, California Nationality: American, of Polish immigrant parents.. Milestones: 1938 Ruth married Elliot Handler 1945 Mattel founded by Harold Matson, Elliot Handler and Ruth Handler to make picture frames 1946 Matson sells his interest to the Handlers.

Mattel makes and sells doll house furniture 1959 Ruth invents a three dimension doll named Barbie 1960 The success of the Barbie doll led Mattel to become a publicly-owned company 1967 Ruth Handler becomes President of Mattel, Inc. 1974 the Handlers leave the Mattel company CAPs: Barbie, Barbie Doll, Ruth Handler, Elliot Handler, Harold Matson, Mattel, SIPs: barbie inventor, biography, profile, history, inventor of, history of, who invented, invention of, fascinating facts. The Story: She's a successful businesswoman, a member of a rock band and a Women's World Cup Soccer player. Who is this superstar? It's none other than Barbie doll. A little hard to believe, but the Barbie Doll started out as a human being! She was Barbara Handler, the daughter of Ruth and Elliot Handler. In the early 1950s, Handler saw that her young daughter, Barbara, and her girlfriends enjoyed playing with adult female dolls as much or more than with baby dolls.

Handler sensed that it was just as important for girls to imagine what they themselves might grow up to become as it was for them to focus on what caring for children might be like. Because all the adult dolls then available were made of paper or cardboard, Handler decided to create a three-dimensional adult female doll, one lifelike enough to serve as an inspiration for her daughter's dreams of her future. Handler took her idea to the ad executives at Mattel Corp., the company that she and her husband, Elliot, had founded in their garage some years before: the (all-male) committee rejected the idea as too expensive, and with little potential for wide market appeal. Soon thereafter, Handler returned from a trip to Europe with a "Lilli" doll, modeled after a character in a German comic strip. Handler spent some time designing a doll similar to Lilli, and even hired a designer to make realistic doll clothes. The result was the Barbie doll (named in honor of the Handlers' daughter), a pint-sized model of the "girl next door." Mattel finally agreed to back Handler's efforts; and the Barbie doll debuted at the American Toy Fair in New York City in 1959.

Girls clamored for the doll, and Barbie set a new sales record for Mattel its first year on the market (351,000 dolls, at $3 each). Since then, Barbie's popularity has rarely flagged; and today, with over one billion dolls sold, the Barbie product line is the most successful in the history of the toy industry. The first Barbie doll sported a ponytail hairstyle, black and white zebra-striped bathing suit, open-toed shoes, sunglasses and earrings. A line of fashions and accessories was also available. Buyers at the industryï¿½s annual Toy Fair in New York were not impressed, but little girls certainly were and the Barbie doll took retailers by storm. Mattel was so swamped with orders that it took several years for supply to catch up with demand. The Barbie doll was introduced as a teenage fashion model, but in the years that followed she has taken on many aspirational roles. She has tackled almost every conceivable profession, including dentist, doctor, firefighter, astronaut, paleontologistï¿½even Presidential candidate.

The Barbie doll has been joined by friends and family over the years, including the Ken dollï¿½named for the Handlersï¿½ sonï¿½in 1961, Midge in 1963, Skipper in 1965 and Christieï¿½an African-American doll and the first of many ethnic friendsï¿½in 1968. More recently, in 1995, the Barbie doll gained a little sister, Baby Sister Kelly, and, in 1997, a disabled friend in a wheelchair, Share a Smile Becky. Barbie doll is further expanding her versatile and limitless roles to inspire girls' dreams as she prepares for the new millennium. The world of the Barbieï¿½ doll today is a great deal more than a doll and accessories. Barbie doll is keeping in step by allowing girls to use their computers to program and personalize their Barbie doll and design, create, play and dream using Barbieï¿½ software. The Barbie line has also developed into a broad array of exciting licensed products for girls, including books, apparel, food, home furnishings and home electronics.

From the beginning, Barbie has also had her critics: the major accusation, from feminists and others, has been that she reinforces sexism, representing a young woman with questionable intelligence and a near-impossible physique. The late 60s even saw the creation of the "Barbie Liberation Organization," after Mattel introduced "Ken", as Barbie's "handsome steady." Despite such criticisms, playing with Barbie dolls seems as a rule to enhance girls' self-image and expand their sense of their potential rather than the opposite. This has become more true over the years, as Barbie herself has expanded her horizons: she has now appeared as a doctor, astronaut, businesswoman, police officer, UNICEF volunteer, and athlete. Over the years, Barbie has achieved the title of the most popular fashion doll ever created. TO LEARN MORE Great Leaders Series: Ruth Handler, Co-founder of Mattel and Inventor of Barbie | Inc.com CAREER WOMAN: Ruth Handler, executive of Mattel Toy company, posing with collection of Barbie dolls, 1961. Advertisement Best known as the inventor of the Barbie doll, Ruth Handler should perhaps be even more noted for her influence on the development of modern advertising and branding.

As the co-founder of Mattel with her husband Elliot, Handler tapped into the power of television, and was one of the first companies to use the medium to advertise directly to children year round. When Mattel bought a $500,000 annual sponsorship for the Mickey Mouse Club in 1955, toy advertisements were still relegated to the weeks leading up to Christmas. Mattel's ads for its "Mouse Guitar" -- part of the toy ukulele fad of the 1950s -- proved to be a huge hit. Handler continued to use television to not only build future brands, including Barbie, but also ensure that the Mattel name was engrained in the brain of every TV- watching kid in the country by running slogans like, "You Can Tell It's Mattel, It's Swell." Handler, who was born in 1916, married her high school sweetheart Elliot and moved with him to southern California. She worked as a stenographer at Paramount Pictures while encouraging her husband's creative handiwork of plastic mirrors and bookends, among other things. When the couple started Mattel in 1945, they produced picture frames.

But the company quickly expanded to manufacture toy furniture, toy pianos, music boxes, and ukuleles. Handler's idea for Barbie--the first doll with adult features that was aimed at kids--emerged from a combination of watching her own daughter, Barbara, play with dolls, and from seeing dolls marketed to adults in Europe. At first, Barbie wasn't any easy sell to Mattel's male executives, who initially thought that the anatomically-advanced doll was too risqué for young girls. Those execs were soon proved wrong. Barbie debuted at the New York Toy Fair in 1959 and Mattel sold 351,000 dolls in the first year alone. The company went public in 1960. Barbie was later joined by Ken (her "one and only boyfriend," according to Mattel corporate history) and friends of different ethnic backgrounds. She embarked on new careers like fashion designer, astronaut, and even American Airlines flight attendant. The different Barbie personalities were featured with a slew of outfits and accessories that needed to be purchased separately.

Some women's groups spoke out against Barbie's unrealistic waist-to-bust measurements, but Handler looked at her creation in a different light: "Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices," she said. Manufacturing went global under Handler's watch and she became president of Mattel in 1967. But her run as a toy entrepreneur wasn't untarnished. A series of bad investments in non-toy industries, including the Ringling Bros. Circus in the early 1970s, led to poor earnings and, eventually, an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Handler and her husband resigned from Mattel in 1975 and she later pled no-contest to charges of preparing false financial statements. She paid a fine and performed community service. Despite her record, Handler went on to found Ruthton Corp., a breast prosthesis manufacturer. The venture had a deep personal connection for Handler who underwent a radical mastectomy during her own cancer battle. Handler's innovations and advocacy helped galvanize the movement for the early detection of breast cancer. Handler died in 2002 but her legacy in the Barbie brand continues.

Despite a recent dip in sales, Mattel still sells more than $1 billion worth of Barbie dolls and assorted accessories every year. Lately, the company has pondered ways to reinvigorate the Barbie brand. Mattel clearly believes it is a name worth fighting for. Last year, it successfully pursued a $100 million lawsuit against the look-alike Bratz dolls. And in 2009, Handler's baby turned the ripe old age of 50, prompting a slew of retrospectives in newspapers and magazines, and on the morning news programs, proving that Barbie can still make headlines. History of Barbie Doll and Inventor Ruth Handler Inventors The first Barbie doll shown at New York Toy Fair in 1959. Courtesy of Barbie Media & Mattel The Barbie doll was invented in 1959 by Ruth Handler (co-founder of Mattel ), whose own daughter was called Barbara. Barbie was introduced to the world at the American Toy Fair in New York City. Barbie's job was teenage fashion doll. The Ken doll was named after Ruth's son and was introduced two years after Barbie in 1961.

Barbie Facts & Technology The full name of the first doll was Barbie Millicent Roberts, from Willows, Wisconsin. Barbie's job was that of teenage fashion model. However, the doll has been made in versions connected to over 125 different careers. She came as either a brunette or blond, and in 1961 red hair was added. In 1980, the first African American Barbie and Hispanic Barbie were introduced, however, Barbie did have a black friend named Christie who was introduced in 1969. continue reading below our video What to Do If Your Identity is Stolen The first Barbie was sold for $3. Additional clothing based on the latest runway trends from Paris were sold, costing from $1 to $5. In the first year (1959), 300,000 Barbie dolls were sold. Today, a mint condition "#1" (1959 Barbie doll) can fetch as much as $27,450. To date, over 70 fashion designers have made clothes for Mattel, using over 105 million yards of fabric.

There has been some controversy over Barbie Doll's figure when it was realized that if Barbie was a real person her measurements would be an impossible 36-18-38. Barbie's "real" measurements are 5 inches (bust), 3 ¼ inches (waist), 5 3/16 inches (hips). Her weight is 7 ¼ ounces, and her height is 11.5 inches tall. In 1965, Barbie first had bendable legs, and eyes that open and shut. In 1967, a Twist 'N Turn Barbie was released that had a moveable body that twisted at the waist. The best-selling Barbie doll ever was 1992 Totally Hair Barbie , with hair from the top of her head to her toes. Photos Inventing Barbie Inventing Barbie "New for '59, the BARBIE doll: A shapely teenage fashion Model! Retail price $3.00..." Barbie was introduced at the American Toy Fair in New York City in February of 1959 by Ruth and Elliot Handler, founders of Mattel Toys. Ruth originally thought of the idea while her daughter, Barbara, was playing with paper dolls.

She realized that as her daughter grew older and began to imitate adult conversations and the world around her, she needed a three-dimensional representation of it as well. She shared her idea of a doll with a woman's figure with her husband and the all-male executive team at Mattel, but they refused saying that it would be too expensive to produce and the retail price would have to be higher than the consumer would pay. She again approached them with the idea after returning from a trip to Europe with a Lilli doll, a German doll produced in the mid- fifties. Lilli, however, was modeled after a sultry, almost pornographic caricature in a German comic strip; she was a far cry from the innocent, all-American image Ruth wanted to capture, and it was Mattel's job to change that. Several trips to and from Japan finally ended with a deal that changed the pursed lips, widow's peak, and heavy make-up of Lilli into an embodiment of the quintessential American teenager, created to "project every little girl's dream of the future"(Billy Boy 22). Barbie appeared at a time when the term "teenager" was a "new and rather sexy one"(Wolff 24).

The country had been through two world wars and a depression, and the fifties presented a time for young adults to come into the limelight. But it was questionable whether or not the American public was ready for a doll with a woman's figure. At her debut she received mixed reviews. Some condemned Barbie and her black- and-white swimsuit for being too "scary, sleazy, and spellbinding"( ; the facial paint on the earliest dolls was very heavy, and her almond-shaped, sharp, sideglances that were not suitable to join the cute, baby-faced Ginny dolls or appropriate alongside the fragile, refined Madame Alexander doll market. Others, however, saw her as "sunshine, Tomorrowland, the future made plastic"(Lord 43) with a fresh face and fashions to fit every girl's daydreams. Over the next few years, these healthy fantasies would prove to be increasingly attractive to parents. Her earliest fashions adhered to the philosophy "the doll sells the clothes and the clothes sell the doll"(West 26).

When Ruth first met with Charlotte Johnson, the designer who would create Barbie's ensembles for the next twenty years, she explicitly wanted a "bridal gown, tennis dress, ballerina outfit, and something for a football game"(Westenhouser 12), but those were only the basics. Along with these appeared sleepwear for slumber parties, which were favorites of young girls, as well as homemaking and hygiene-influenced designs. These provided the "pleasant and cheerful experience" of "Barbie-Q" to which Charlotte soon added the "elegance and style" of "Gay Parisienne"(Billy Boy 25) . Johnson was a stickler for details, and because the dolls were not mass-produced the early outfits readily included every minute zipper, silk lining, hand-sewn label, and pearl choker that had graced the romantic French "haute couture" styles they emulated. She found her designs everywhere from the "fashion houses of Europe to the Sears Roebuck catalogue"(Westenhouser 60; social lines could be crossed.

Handler wanted to create a stunning wardrobe from which each child could choose an outfit to create her own personality for Barbie; therefore she had to develop fashions to coordinate with society's expectations and aspirations. These earliest fashions were indicative of the values and beliefs of the Barbie doll's initial target market, middle-class America. For the mothers who saw Barbie as too sexy, the Handler's advertising ideas revolved around convincing them that Barbie would make each owner "a poised little lady"(Lord 40). Thus, for Barbie's first advertising agency, she ceased to be a doll and became a living teenager that young girls would want to imitate. They invented a life for her that "was as glamorous and American as Lilli's had been tawdry and foreign"(41); hence the creation of the French designs. The Handler's hoped that American mothers would see the tennis dress and ballerina outfit as stable, safe representations of fun and frolic for teenagers, and the football game outfit and wedding dress as wholesome and pure dreams for the future of their daughters. The traditional homemaker designs appealed to those who were Donna Reed fans and showed the importance of a healthy, balanced lifestyle; however, Barbie added a vogue look to that traditional role as well.

Regardless of whether Barbie was cooking or socializing, she was acting a part little girls began to notice; she was teaching women what was expected of them by society. For these first-generation Barbie owners, she "taught independence...[she was] her own woman and [could] invent herself with a costume change"(Lord 9). She had already earned herself a high degree of respectability and became a figure girls wanted to emulate; she was not only a fashion model, she could be a sophisticate or a homemaker. Soon it was evident that despite Ruth's original desire to have each child create a personality for the doll, Barbie began to have an identity of her own. Over the next two years suggestions to remold Barbie surfaced; however, the Handlers insisted on a strict adherence to the original mold to ensure familiarity among consumers. Although very little changed in Barbie's physique, her face underwent plastic surgery after the turn of the decade. The sophisticated look of her introduction gave way to a more natural image in 1961. Designers created a less constrained visage with bright blue irises and curved eyebrows. These replaced the hard, almost aloof look produced by Barbie's heavy black eyeliner and pointed eyebrows which were complaints at her introduction.

Barbie emerged with a softer skin tone and a different hairstyle, a bubble- cut, becoming even more realistic for her audience That was not enough though; the public wanted more. Against Mattel's wishes but by popular demand, they introduced Barbie's "handsome steady" Ken in 1961. They had coordinating outfits for fraternity parties, lawn picnics, drive-ins, and the beach. Magazines began to run comic-book like stories about the couple, a series of books were published by Random House, and Barbie sang about her new boyfriend Ken on a record. These inventions helped kids to understand relationships and manners . With the couple Mattel had developed the "quintessence of wholesome activity blended with elegant and youthful physiques and high fashion style"(Billy Boy 56). The couple was enjoying realistic adventures while children fantasized about adult life. Their seemingly perfect life did not survive without criticism; many saw Barbie as antifeminist who was a victim of a man-oriented society. They saw the introduction of Ken as an indication that women could not stand on their own and had to be constantly supported by men. Ken was an important addition to Barbie's world as a reflection of the majority of society's attitudes.

Mattel was against the introduction of Ken because male dolls had not historically fared well in the market, but requests for a boyfriend for Barbie were endless. Criticism of the couple was bound to arise, but Ken's role involved much more than Barbie needing a date for Friday night. Granted, Barbie may not have been a women's rights activist in 1961, but she was a reflection of women's roles in society at the time. These roles were often defined by the men in women's lives; they were happy with raising families and being housewives, nurses, and hostesses. The couple's relationship exemplified the contemporary attitudes of teens who were celebrating peace and prosperity. Moreover, critics should have realized that her boyfriend was still only a mere accessory. Barbie and Ken's ensembles were named for recreational activities and for the outfits themselves because the American mindset was not about men and women competing for careers in the job market; it was a time for sock-hops and drive-ins. It would have been outlandish for Barbie to have outfits named for her many careers because most women were not concentrating on a career other than raising a family.

Barbie portrayed an alternative, a life before marriage, without discarding the traditional values that accompanied this lifestyle; she transformed poised and proper behavior and made it glamorous. Inevitably, these roles would soon change, and Mattel would refashion Barbie to conform to these standards. To help counter some criticism of Barbie as sex symbol, Mattel introduced Midge, Barbie's best friend, in 1963 and Skipper, Barbie's little sister, in 1964. Midge's fuller, freckled face was less intimidating and sensual and gave a less sexual connotation. Skipper was the answer to the request for Barbie to have kids; instead of marrying, Barbie and Skipper would babysit. A pregnant Barbie would tarnish her "perfect" figure and make her slightly too domestic. She must remain youthful, almost invincible. Children would age Barbie; she was still "a teenage fashion model, and the world was her runway"(Lord 41). One can surmise that even that was not enough to hold Barbie-fanatics' or the Barbie-haters' attention for long.

As the first "season" of designs came to a close, one can see the imminent evolution of Barbie's wardrobe, personality, and image as a social revolution appeared on the horizon. Sept. 6, 1959: Mattel's Barbie Goes on Sale | HowStuffWorks Sept. 6, 1959: Mattel's Barbie Goes on Sale Photo courtesy Mattel For more than four decades, the popular doll known as Barbie has given young girls a chance to preview every imaginable career. At the same time, Barbie has kept up with women's fashion, switching each decade from vintage 1960s Parisienne chic to bell bottoms to business class. She's the ultimate shape-shifter, available in every career or theme imaginable -- "Cinco de Mayo", "Alice in Wonderland" and "Barbie Learns to Cook" are just a handful of possible Barbie styles. There are actually four separate versions of Cher -- two "regular" versions, a 1970s Cher and a 1980s Cher! Her shape has also created controversy over the years -- despite providing young girls with a career-oriented role model, many argue that Barbie's body type is unrealistic and impossible.

If Barbie sprung to life as a grown-up, 5-foot-9-inch woman, her bust-waist-hip measurements would be an unbelievably unnatural 36-18-33. Some claim girls who play with Barbie dolls might receive a distorted view of beauty and appearance. Some even suggest the dolls reinforce negative and conflicting stereotypes of women as weak, submissive and unintelligent. So how did Barbie get her start? Up Next 10 Historical Toys Barbie began when Ruth Handler, co-founder of Mattel, saw her daughter, Barbara, playing with paper dolls. This wasn't anything out of the ordinary for little girls at the time, as paper dolls were a popular toy . But Ruth noticed something interesting -- her daughter enjoyed imagining the dolls in grown-up scenarios and not as infants. She suggested to Mattel the possibility of an adult female doll, one that could give young girls inspiration for the future. The idea was rejected, though, because executives felt that girls would not have enough interest in a potentially expensive doll. With her idea in mind she traveled to Europe , and Handler discovered a popular German doll named Lilli. She brought the doll back to the United States and, using Lilli for inspiration, completed the design for Barbie.

(The doll is named Barbie, of course, after Handler's daughter, Barbara.) With skepticism, Mattel finally agreed to produce the doll and introduce her during the 1959 American Toy Fair in New York City . Barbie proved to be a huge success with young girls and still remains one of the world's most recognizable toys. The Ken doll was introduced two years later in 1961, and Barbie has amassed her own posse of friends over the years. She continues to capitalize on trends -- recent Barbies come tricked out with iPods -- and serious collectors looking for a nostalgia pay large sums of money for vintage Barbie dolls. For more information on Barbie, Mattel and related topics, check out the links on the next page. ­ Barbie's German Precursor: Lilli Lilli, Barbie's original inspiration from Germany, was a bit sassier than her wholesome American counterpart. She was a three- dimensional model of a cartoon character who appeared in the German tabloid "Bild Zeitung." The comic strip essentially portrayed Lilli as a prostitute, as she flirted with rich businessmen and talked back to police officers.

Ruth Handler obviously had to clean up Lilli's act before introducing her to the American public, and a new wardrobe and a change of name were enough to keep Barbie's saucy cousin in the dark. 1 Master Student Hall of Fame Master Student Hall of Fame Ruth Handler Not many are as familiar with the name Ruth Handler as they are with this one: Barbie. In the early 1950s, Ruth Handler, the executive vice president of Mattel, Inc. at the time, had noticed something fascinating as she watched her young daughter, Barbara play with paper dolls. She noticed that contrary to what most toy manufacturers had said about little girls wanting to play "mommy," her daughter, as well as many other girls her age, had a penchant for playing big girls more so than young mothers. The idea for making a three-dimensional doll that had a change of clothes, moveable extremities and, most importantly, a physique, would be an excellent toy to manufacture. In 1959, Ruth Handler launched Barbie (named after her daughter) and saw the sales for the plastic and rubber doll skyrocket into its place as a new American icon. Born last of ten children to Polish immigrants in Denver, Colorado on Nov.

4, 1916, Ruth Mosko would unwittingly become a frontrunner in a feminist movement that both embraced her and decried her for her controversial invention. Introduced at the World's Fair in 1959, Barbie was met with cool reception by the mostly male store buyers of that era. The few who did pick up the doll saw it fly off their shelves in a matter of days and with that, a phenomenon was born. Ruth married Elliot Handler in 1938 and established Mattel with another business partner, Harold Matson in 1945. At the time, Mattel was a fledgling company, based out of the Handler's garage in Hawthorne, California. Manufacturing picture frames and eventually, dollhouses out of the spare parts of the frames Mattel's basis as a toy company started out almost accidentally. After Matson sold the company to the Handlers, Mattel focused its efforts on toys and among the first toys manufactured was the Uke-A-Doodle, a child-sized ukulele. A string of similarly quirky children's toys set Mattel on a solid road to success.

Then came Barbie, and a slew of counterparts such as younger sister, Skipper, boyfriend, Ken and in 1968, Christie, the line's first African American doll. Riding on the coattails of Barbie, Mattel also manufactured the equally successful Hot Wheels line, which celebrated the sale of its two billionth car in 1998. Ruth Handler served as Mattel's executive vice president from 1948-1967, president in 1967 and became chairman of the board in 1973 along with her husband. However, Handler, who had developed breast cancer and had to undergo a mastectomy, left the company in 1975 to develop a new line of prosthetic breasts. Her contributions to the prosthetics industry once again propelled her to the top of her field, after she founded "Nearly Me," a manufacturer of realistic prosthetics for women who had lost the very parts of their bodies that had made Barbie such an object of widespread discussion and controversy. In April 2002, Ruth Handler passed away. More information is available for each of the Master Student Profiles. Start by visiting these web sites to find out more about Ruth Handler.

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Question: Ruth Handler introduced what toy for young girls in 1959?
Answer: Barbie Doll